Moderator: Tim White
OpenTrackRacer wrote:<snipped>
I should mention that we don't do any really long rappels. The longest vertical rappel we've done so far was fifty feet or so. We've encountered some shafts that were 200 feet or so but haven't gone down yet. That's about the longest I'd expect to encounter. We do go down longer inclined shafts but I'm not worried about those.
Rescue is a very good point Scott. What we do would depend on the situation of course. If we still had people above we would descend and asses the injured persons condition. From there we could lower them down to the bottom of the shaft or leave them in place while we get help. We could also ascend from below and do the same thing if the rest of us were already down. It would really boil down to the extent of the injuries. If someone was hurt bad we would not attempt to extract them ourselves but would seek help.
Compared to other guys we encounter exploring mines, we're being super cautious and trying to anticipate the worst that can happen. We're not opposed to spend some money to get the right gear to be as safe as possible. It also allows us to access places in the mine that not many people have visited due to what's required to get there.
OpenTrackRacer wrote:If they were in good condition but upright it leaves more options.
fuzzy-hair-man wrote:OpenTrackRacer wrote:If they were in good condition but upright it leaves more options.
Not quite, if they are immobile they are in danger of harness hang syndrome (HHS), in trials conducted by a french group (I think) as little as 6 minutes hanging immobile was required for an otherwise healthy person to loose consiousness in some of these cases the person complained of not feeling well and before they could be lowered they had lost consiousness. The trials weren't completed despite having medical staff nearby such was their concern for the subjects.
Hanging back so that you are horizontal is one of the ways to combat HHS but really they need to get off rope as soon as possible.
Here's a previous topic about HHS:
http://forums.caves.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2816&st=0&sk=t&sd=a
fuzzy-hair-man wrote: I prefer the bobbin because I thought the Stop taught me and others bad habits
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